Conventional devices have been employed to direct fluids, such as treatment fluids or processing fluids onto a substrate. For example, conventional cutting devices, such as high pressure water cutters, have been employed to cut the side contours of the components employed in absorbent articles, such as disposable diapers, feminine care products, incontinence products and the like. Such components include, for example, absorbent pads, bodyside liner layers, backsheet layers, and the like. Typically, the mechanisms employed to direct the fluid along the desired patterns or contours have been regulated by devices such as cam boxes, open cams, die cutters and other types of mechanical and electromechanical pattern-following systems. Such devices can produce fixed and repeating patterns, but the patterns are not readily modified. To change the cutting pattern in a can system, for example, it is usually necessary to remove and replace an entire cam box portion of the system. To change the cutting pattern in a die cutter system, it has been necessary to remove and replace the die set if the same repeat length is employed, or to remove and replace the entire die cutter if a different repeat length is desired. In addition, conventional devices, such as those described above, have had difficulty accommodating high speed manufacturing processes which incorporate rapid accelerations and rapid direction changes. During such high speed operations, the rapid accelerations can produce excessively high wear and excessively high stresses. As a result, the manufacturing line is not readily adaptable to produce variations in the desired product, and the manufacturing line can require excessively high maintenance. The stress and wear on the cutting systems can, over time, produce excessive variability in the formation of the desired patterns or contours.
Due to the shortcoming of conventional systems, such as those described above, there has been a need for directing devices that can be rapidly adapted to produce various, different patterns or contours. In addition, there has been a need for systems that have a more consistent operation, are more reliable, produce less variability and are less susceptible to mechanical wear.